Opening: A More-Than-Human Night at the MuseumOpening: A More-Than-Human Night at the Museum

With contributions from 'pluriversal' researchers and curators Sophie Krier and Erik Wong, nature-inclusive landscape architect Maike van Stiphout, climate activist and artist Suzanne Dhaliwal, earth eater masharu, performance collective House of GHOD, DJ Emma Champagne Queen, Het Nieuwe Instituut's Detour Guides, and many more.

From 5pm to midnight, you can enjoy special guided tours, lectures, workshops, live radio shows and music in and around the institute! We celebrate the earth, dream about the future and dance under the stars.

• 5pm - 9pm: About working together with other-than-human life, by the Detour Guides (on the Deck)
• 5.30pm - 6.00pm, 6.30pm - 7.00pm and 7.30pm - 8.00pm: Detours through In Search of the Pluriverse (Gallery 2)
• 6.00pm -7.00pm: Listen! (Room 1)
• 7.00pm - 8.00pm: Inauguration of Het Nieuwe Instituut as a Zoöp (Auditorium)
• 5.30-5.50 PM, 6.30-6.50 PM: Tour Zoöp DataFusion (The New Garden)
• 7.00-8.30 PM: Earth as Superfood by earth eater masharu (The New Garden)
• 7.30pm - 8.00pm: Living the Pluriverse Radio Show - Talk #1 (Room 1)
• 8.15pm - 8.45pm: Living the Pluriverse Radio Show - Talk #2 (Room 1)
• All evening: The New Garden - an ecological city park in the heart of Rotterdam
• All evening: Worlds Within by Nina van Hartskamp
• Online: Green in the City Podcast #3: Museum Park.

Can we humans interact more successfully with other-than-human life such as fungi, birds, microbes and plants? And how do we involve these other living beings in design questions? Explore these topics together with Detour Guides Pia Canales and Wietske Flederus on the Deck, which is all about the Zoöp: an organisational form in which people and other living beings work together.

Join one of our Detour Guides on a journey through the multiverse, a world where multiple worlds can thrive simultaneously. How realistic is the idea of a world in which people and other beings live together in harmony with each other and their environment? A fair world, in which we together shape a future that really does have a future?

Welcome to our Search for the Pluriverse - a world in which many worlds can thrive.

Lecture, performance, workshop or all three? We're not sure, but we do know that in this event artist and activist Suzanne Dhaliwal will explore what's at stake for art and design in this age of ecocide and climate crisis. She will share how she works with creative strategies as she strives for a more diverse climate activist community and the inclusion of human rights in the climate debate. For Dhaliwal, listening is an important, but easily overseen element of activism.

A Zoöperative is a cooperative partnership with what was called zoë in ancient Greece: with all life, in other words, including humans, animals, plants and microbes. It is a revolutionary organisational model that can be adopted by a huge range of institutions or initiatives. When an organisation becomes a Zoöp, the human members of the alliance commit to learning how to work on an equal basis with the other-than-human members. The voices and interests of those other-than-human forms of life are represented by an official called the Speaker for the Living. During the meeting on Friday 22 April, the initiators will explain the Zoöp model and we will discuss why Het Nieuwe Instituut is choosing to operate as one from now on. We introduce you to our Speaker for the Living, the nature-inclusive landscape architect Maike van Stiphout. Together we will sign the contract officially making Het Nieuwe Instituut a Zoöp. We will then discuss the meaning of Zoöperative living and working together with our guests.

• Read more in this interview with researcher and Zoöp initiator Klaas Kuitenbrouwer.
• Read up on Proto-Zoöps, organisations on their way to becoming Zoöps.
• Check out what's behind the Zoöp model.

Nine people from different backgrounds, ages, genders, origins, professions get together to look at the same 30x30x30m space of The New Garden, synchronized at the same temporal points. A space that is formed by plants, human visitors and workers, insects, air particles and animals but also human artifacts like buildings and parking lots as well as electromagnetic fields, climatic forces, ultrasounds.

Each member of the team looks at different layers, composing its own polyphonic vision of the same piece of biosphere, with diverse organic and electronic sensors: geophones, thermal cameras, the human sense of smell or pollen sniffers.

Zoöp DataFusion is a collective research project that aims to develop new methodologies of tracing and understanding more mutually beneficial modes of living together for all zoë within a given space. With: Christine Hvidt, Philipp Groubnov, Vivien Vuong, Alexander Köppel, Andrzej Konieczny and Leon Lapa Pereira, of the ArtScience interfaculty of the University of the Arts, and researchers Rodrigo Delso and Eric Kluitenberg.

Come along and taste edible soil from The New Garden! Amsterdam-based artist masharu brings together a collection of edible soils from across the globe. The exhibit invites the audience to review their knowledge about food and cultural traditions using creative thinking. Earth as Superfood addresses the following questions: What stands behind earth-eating tradition? Where does the edible earth come from? What are the possible benefits and dangers of eating earth? How do the material properties of the earth affect its flavor?

Sophie Krier and Erik Wong, curators of the exhibition In Search of the Pluriverse, talk to Sean Leonard, Miquel Hervás Gómez, Nina van Hartskamp, la CAR, Joke Robaard, Aslı Hatipoğlu, House of the Future, Eva Pfannes & Silvain Hartenberg (Ooze), Mhairi Killin, Kornelia Dimitrova, Cynthia Hathaway and some surprise guests. Talking about the pluriverse is nice, but how can we put our words into action?

After extensive winter work, the New Garden opens to visitors again. This remarkably biodiverse urban wilderness was created in 2015 by artist Frank Bruggeman and ecological landscape gardener Hans Engelbrecht. Following the redesign, people, animals and plants still offer space for each other, and the garden is ready to grow and bloom again. Listen, look around and explore.Read more<

Museum Park in Rotterdam is best known for its many museums, such as Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Kunsthal and the recently completed Boijmans Van Beuningen Depot designed by MVRDV. Much less know is the fact that Museum Park was once an extensive green enclave in the heart of the city. The area was called the Land of Hoboken, after its owners of the time. After the land was sold to the city council in 1924, it became a public city park, where differing views on the function of greenery in the city have left their mark. In the podcast we search for these ideas. Can they still be recognised and experienced? And what do current users think of the Museum Park?

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